The present invention relates to an article selecting and conveying system, and more specifically, relates to a cop selecting and conveying apparatus which is applied to a system for conveying different kinds of cops to an automatic winder.
There exists a system in which different kinds of articles are conveyed by a common conveyor passage so that they are selected midway of the passage to belong to identical groups and are conveyed to predetermined destinations. More specifically, in the system in which articles being conveyed on a single conveyor are selected in accordance with their colors, shapes, sizes and so on so that the articles belonging to different kinds may be separately conveyed by different branch passages, there are suitably used as a selecting device a variety of methods and devices. In one such method and device, articles belonging to an identical kind are selected by coloring, articles belonging to an identical kind in an identical color, by electrically reading said color by means of a mark sensor and by actuating a gate for switching branch passages in response to the signal read out. In another method and device, articles are discriminated in terms of their heights by judging whether an optical beam is allowed to pass through or is intercepted by the articles. This is accomplished by means of photoelectric tube sensors disposed at vertically different positions and by operating an actuator for switching the branch passages.
The present applicants have previously proposed a system in which one automatic winder is divided into a plurality of winding sections so that the respective sections may take up the different kinds of cops fed thereto.
The present device relates to a cop selecting and conveying apparatus to be used in that system for automatically feeding the cops to the respective winding units without providing the respective winding units with cop storage magazines.
In the conventional methods and apparatus for selecting and conveying articles, generally speaking, most of the methods and devices use electric signals as in the above so that a wiring operation and a drive source for the moving gate are required. In a device such as the mark sensor for selecting the kinds of the articles by judging the colors, alternatively, the reliability of the mark sensor is still so low as to make the reliable selections difficult.